A Glass Birdbath Worthy of Gracing the Grounds of Hogwarts

I think I outdid Sandra the Sewing Muse with that alliterative-laced post title.  Now about the birdbath...Since my daughter was going to Marshall's for a little shopping, I gave her $20 just in case there were some interesting and inexpensive glass pieces to feed my glass garden ornament obsession. 

Were I not being chewed up by mosquitoes, I would have gotten a better shot of the bottom piece.  It looks like green glass roots coming up out of the ground.  Keegan says it looks like something that would grow at Hogwarts. 

Love it, love it, love it!  Thank you, Keegan, my new personal shopper.

Partying at:
 

More Garden Inspiration -- Glass Garden Totems

I saw one of these in my friend's Cape Cod garden over the weekend which inspired a trip to the Salvation Army store.  I accidentally lucked out by arriving on a "most-things-are-half-price-today" sale!

Nature assisted by filling this one last night. 

The upside-down base vases of both totems are sitting atop pieces of a straight curtain rod--so much cheaper than buying something. and the white looks good! 

The top piece of this one is a $6 paperweight from Marshall's.  The rest of the pieces of both totems are S. A. purchases that were from fifty cents to a dollar.  To bring in more blue, I filled the center piece, a cruet with a nice snug top, with water and blue food coloring.

 

Can't wait for the next half-price day!

Partying at:  

 

An Inspired Birdbath

Danni at Silo Hill Farm had a post about the Bloomin' Marvelous series going at Inspiration Cafe that really did inspire me to do something related to the garden!  Here is my newest birdbath. This one, for my hummingbirds, really does look like a giant flower to me.
 

Both pieces were from Marshall's.  The base piece is about two feet high, a giant stemmed goblet!  You can see the base better in the next photo.  I splurged on that, ten whole dollars.  The top, though, was only $4. Fourteen dollars to give the little beauties their own private bath doesn't seem too much.  They've been flitting around the hanging water at the large bird feeders which made me think they might like a small place for water near where they feed.  My hummingbirds LOVE the Hosta flowers. 

These join the other two glass birdbaths I blogged about here and here.  I need to branch out and use another material next time.

Thanks for the inspiration, Danni.

Partying at:

Book Club at the Cape and an Update on the Swimsuit Sarong

Every book club should have a getaway meeting--especially if one of the members has moved to a lovely beach town on Cape Cod.

I had to show you the osprey nest on top of what they tell me is a insect control box. I do love an over-sized home.

We spent about ten minutes discussing books and hours and hours on the beach, eating seafood, and trying out all the different wines everyone brought along. 

Some of the ladies of the club at a nursery that had a fairy garden with these sweet stone pieces.

See the little fairy door built into the stone?

We squeezed in several nurseries including the Cape Code Lavender nursery and also managed a short but expensive trip to the Scargo Pottery store.

And as for the swimsuit sarong update--I don't know whether it is that I'm too lazy to tie a knot or my present obsession with putting snaps on everything.  I decided to update last year's sarong with some pearl snaps.  I put two sets of snaps on the top to make it a wrap-around.

Love how the fabric drapes on the side showing a swirl of the black backing fabric.

The fact that I think this way makes me look thinner may have something to do with the snap decision.

Baby Gift One: Done!

One baby blanket for my daughter's expected new baby granddaughter,

  

 and one Baby Binky Bunny with a matching baby blanket for the two-year old big sister.

I'm thinking that having a new sister will be quite a transition for big sister Angelica who has been the only grandchild getting ALL the attention for the last two years!

Hopefully having her own new baby with a blanket that matches the new sister's will give Angelica something to do when her mom is busy with all that new baby stuff....yeah, I'm dreaming here, right?  We all remember how well two-year-old kids share their stuff, let alone their parents!

Another Binky Bunny and Some Hand Embroidery

Life keeps getting in the way of my sewing.  It's so annoying.  I have accomplished a few thing, though. 

Another Baby Binky Bunny from the pattern I mentioned in the last post.  Love this one. I prefer the eyes hand sewn in place.  I loved his embroidered nose until my son wanted to know why I embroidered a rose there.  Now I'm feeling insecure about it.  By #3 I should have this stuff all straightened out.

I've also been doing some hand embroidery while watching television and when in the car (as a passenger--no need to worry for your life).

From the Lecien website

I found this design on the Lecien website among the free quilt patterns.  I've made some very minor tweaks in the design and changed the colors completely to match the fabric I'm going to be using.  The Lecien quilt is also quite colorful.  I just don't have that fabric or those threads in the stash.  I really, really must start using up the stash.

Off to enjoy the sun before it's gone.  We have had SO  much rain lately that I hate being inside when I finally see some sun.  Hope y'all are having a nice weather day, too!

But the Vinegar Weed Killer DID Work

I pinned something about a home-made weed killer solution using regular, grocery store vinegar.  Then I read another post that this could not possibly work. 

Off I went to remove the pin.  Yet, I seemed to have a memory of accidentally killing off some grass with vinegar.  Instead of deleting the pin, I went to the pinned post.  There were before and after photos of a brick patio much like mine--lots of green weeds, then, lots of yellow ones.  Gotta try it, right?

First time I didn't take pics of the before.  I just tried it on the worst section of my patio. (Yes, the patio is a mess.  We are just barely hitting "use the patio weather" here!).  Here is a shot of the after.

That is freakin' great!  So, then, I did this little experiment on clover to show here.  This is the before pic with three little patches of clover in the brick.  I sprinkled the first two with the vinegar solution.

 

Here they are less than 24 hours later.  If you look close, you can see the shriveled up remains of the first two.  Even the last one seems to have suffered from sprinkling some of the small ones that were close by. (Good reason not to get too close to the good plants.)

No before pics for the following, but they show that it worked on different weeds and grasses

Maybe the point of the naysayers is that this will not be killing the roots.  Still, if I have to sprinkle this much safer, cheaper stuff a few times I'm still ahead.  There may be a few hardy weeds that will keep coming back--dandelions and such, but most root systems need those leaves to stay alive in the long run. 

I used a solution of one gallon of vinegar, one cup of salt, and 3 tablespoons of dish detergent.  The pinned post called for less detergent, but I decided to go for more. I think I've mentioned my inability to follow directions before. I'd like to say I'm working on that, but I'm not.

 My experiments continue, however.  Once a home schooler, always a home schooler--even when the kids are gone.  I'm trying straight vinegar on a few of the really large weeds in another section of the garden beds (or I probably should say weed beds to be perfectly honest) and some of the mixed solution on others.  I shall let you know how it goes in the long run.

Update:  The straight vinegar worked just as well on the weeds in the garden as the mix.  Large weeds including a very large dandelion were completely shriveled and brown.  I'll see if they come back and let you know.